Bulletproof Heart
by Moshing In Panem
Summary: Haymitch and Katniss in the hospital after visiting District 8.


Author's note: Occurs in the hospital in the_ Mockingjay_ era. My first _THG_ fan fiction.

**DISCLAIMER**: I do not own any of the characters or story created by Suzanne Collins.

_I scrunch up the earpiece wire protectively in my fist and fling the head shackle back in his face with my free hand but he catches it easily… Probably was expecting me to throw it. _

"_Anything else?" _I snap, my eyes fixed intently on him.

_He rises to go_. Or so I think.

Instead, he comes to my bed-side and hovers with an un-Haymitch-esque mien of indecision about him. He looks unrested, unkempt, unshaven—not that the last was necessarily a bad thing. 5' o clock shadow suited him more than Jack Daniels. His dark, chocolate-coloured hair was messy and in all different directions; his pale blue Oxford, contrasting against weathered and worn, tanned and torn skin, was rolled up at the elbow, wrinkled, and open two-buttons more than was acceptable by Effie's standards. Just the way he liked it. Just the way I liked it. And before I realize what's about to transpire, it happens again, but this time there's so much more involved. This time, it's my fault, like most things lately.

Carefully, he lowers his head to kiss me. It was meant for the chaste and virtuous—although a tad sunburned—cheek, and the cheek alone, but as you know, nothing ever goes as planned these days.

There's a flash of pain above my right knee at the sudden movement, but I ignore it as I raise myself, turning to catch Haymitch's lips as I place one hand on his cheek.

He doesn't pull away.

He never does.

This time, it's different. His face is not so clean cut, but a moderate stubble remains, grating gently against my skin, breaking down all of the barriers that I usually have up. He tastes of metal, mint and hope, the caustic, sickly sweet after-taste of Greasy Sae's white liquor effaced from my memory by this latest clandestine development. My arms encircle his neck and his practiced, calloused hands grip my waist for support, having already made a home there previously. Level-headed-when-sober, although usually inebriated, apathetic, lonely, anti-social Haymitch. If only Plutarch or Coin or Gale or Peeta (heaven forbid the former) could see him now, leaning against the hospital bed, my hands knotted in his hair.

Desperate, lonely physical contact makes the kiss even more urgent. Every forbidden febrile push in the wrong direction feels more sinfully delicious than the last. Haymitch's hand wanders onto my thigh before I reluctantly slide my hands from his hair, down his neck and onto his chest to push away. I couldn't have properly pushed him away if I wanted to do so. The half-hearted gesture simply meant that the time was up. Even still, his Haymitch's hand slides at least two inches up my hospital gown before he relents and I flop back to the seemingly frigid pillow, trying desperately to slow my erratic, tell-tale breathing and make sense of what just occurred before I set off the monitors.

When I look up, having remembered the bastard, I notice the devilish grin across Haymitch's face. I avert my eyes. Suddenly, I feel stupid, and hormonal, and weak and… very much like a stupid teenage girl. Panem was in the middle of an unprecedented uprising, and the best that I could do was to get injured and try to stick my tongue down Haymitch's throat?

My weakness wasn't the inability to follow commands, no. The temptations of the flesh presented themselves as greater problems. Perhaps, if I had grown up with a father figure in my life, I wouldn't have felt such a pathetic craving, desire —no need— for male validation.

"Well, sweetheart," Haymitch chuckles, careful not to look too thoroughly pleased with himself when I risk a furtive glance in his direction.

"It appears as if I didn't wait all day in vain."

At this point, face flushed and blood boiling, I could do absolutely nothing but sulk. I hadn't thought things through, but I couldn't resist. Haymitch was so entirely different from Peeta and Gale. He was a man, not a boy pretending to be a man. He wasn't just figuring things out. He was—well, perhaps "stable" wasn't the best word. He could fend for himself and take care of himself. So could Gale, but it was different. He had gone through so much more pain, grief, heartbreak, desolation and despair… Gale had been hot-and-cold as of recent and Peeta was as good as dead. I had nothing left to hold onto.

Sensing the guilt, self-pity and tension of the curious nature still present—and being simply asinine—he decides to let me in on something in a classic Haymitch display of solidarity.

"_While I was waiting… I ate your lunch."_ He licks his lips in a borderline seductive fashion. Perhaps it would have been, had it not been for the immense agitation Haymitch evoked in me.

_My eyes take in the empty stew bowl and tray on my bed table_, and I have just about had enough of Haymitch for a century.

"_I'm going to report you," I mumble into my pillow._

"Well, you will have more than enough charges to press, won't you?" he whispers, breath grazing my ear and causing me to shiver. His hands are on either side of me, his lips pressing gingerly against my throat. I couldn't help but involuntarily let out a strangled whimper escape my lips as his teeth graze my skin. He laughs before turning to go.

"_You do that, sweetheart." He goes out, safe in the knowledge that I'm not the reporting kind._


End file.
